Let’s look at two separate Angkorian sandstone statues

Khmer Art Overseas: Let’s look at two separate Angkorian sandstone statues, a female and male, both headless, as well as missing their arms and feet, from the two-day auction of Asian art by Bonhams and Cornette de Saint Cyr in Paris last October. The auction raised €14.5 million for the 341 items that were from the private collection of Robert and Jean-Pierre Rousset, gallery owners from Paris. Both of these sculptures went for substantial sums, however, its noticeable that the provenance record for the majority of the Khmer artifacts date back to Robert Rousset purchases from Bangkok dealers and galleries in the 1960s. That would indicate the looting of Khmer temples was by now in full swing, with the statues and carvings heading unhindered across the Cambodia-Thailand border and into the showrooms of Bangkok-based dealers. The female, originally with four arms, sold for €277,575, above its pre-sale estimate, and was acquired from the Smit Gallery in Bangkok in April 1965. The female deity is in the Koh Ker style of the early tenth century, elegantly carved with an hour-glass torso, with full breasts above delicately incised lines to indicate slight rolls of skin and sumptuous wide hips. She wears a long straight sampot flaring slightly at the bottom, with a large curling flap and incised vertical lines to indicate the fine pleats. Standing at 90 centimeters in height, she was another piece that was featured in the 1969 Ancient Cambodian Sculpture exhibition at Asia House in New York. Expert Sherman Lee wrote at the time: Koh Ker's sculptural style is distinct from those developed in Angkor's immediate vicinity. The stone sculpture, often monumental in size, is imbued with a heightened sense of movement and a suppleness of form. The broad flap of pleated fabric that hangs over the sash at the waist, a fashion which first appeared in the last quarter of the ninth century, then became the convention in the tenth century during the Koh Ker period and can also be seen on male figures from Banteay Srei. Given the dominance of the Shaivite cult throughout the Koh Ker temple complex, it is most likely that this four-armed figure would have been Durga - the wrathful female aspect of Shiva. The hieratic monumentality of this rare female deity is balanced against the soft fleshy skin and flair of the curling flap that Jean Boisselier, in his review of Koh Ker sculptural style characterized as 'dynamic equilibrium'. For the male deity, this fetched a sale price of €164,175, again, above its estimate. It dates from the late tenth century Khleang art style, is 70 centimeters high and was purchased by Robert Rousset from the dealer Peng Seng in Bangkok in January 1971. Just one of many such purchases by Rousset from his favoured dealers in the capital of Thailand, and the central hub for artworks looted from Cambodian temples at that time. The elegant torso with subtle, yet powerful representation of his pectoral muscles and broad shoulders. The superb sampot is rendered in narrow vertical pleats and spreads across the left thigh in broader fan-like manner. The fabric is drawn between the thighs and arranged on the reverse in a double hook that rises from beneath the belt. The observation of the garment by the artist is remarkable in the manner in which it is secured with a delicately depicted overlapping sash on the left side and is pulled under the right side with a fold protruding artfully from the top and the end draped in a scabbard-like fold. This rare and very important sculpture represents the transition in aesthetic tastes under Suryavarman I that defined the Khleang style. It is most likely that the figure portrays Avalokiteshvara due to the presence of four arms and the ruler's favour of Buddhism. The shoulders are quite straight and do not yet have the roundness of the style of the Baphuon and the adaptation of the sampot closer to the style of Banteay Srei.